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Digital/Analog Box Requirement in Works

May 24, 2005  •  Post A Comment

TV set manufacturers who insist on continuing to make analog-only TV sets could soon be required to include digital-to-analog boxes with their products if Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has his way.

“I don’t know why these foreign manufacturers shouldn’t shift over to digital, and if they don’t, they should give us a box,” Sen. Stevens said at a conference Tuesday in Rosslyn, Va., sponsored by the National Spectrum Managers Association.

Sen. Stevens also said he would prefer to avoid a transition to digital TV that would require the federal government to subsidize acquisition of digital-to-analog converters.

“I’d like to avoid the subsidy and let the buyer have the full value of going to digital, and if they want to buy analog now, it ought to transition into the next generation of digital,” Sen. Stevens said.